US General Election 2016

You're definitely reading them right.  According to current polling data (and it's been like this for a while from what I can tell) Sanders has a much better chance of winning against either Trump or Cruz than does Clinton.  Clinton has the backing of the establishment and Wall Street but not of the American People.

Not what I would have expected. I would have thought that Clinton, being more centrist, would win more crossover votes. But I suppose people have stronger reasons not to like her.

It's sad, this may be the first time I'll cast my vote depending on polling results.

jon wrote: According to current polling data (and it's been like this for a while from what I can tell) Sanders has a much better chance of winning against either Trump or Cruz than does Clinton.  

Neither of whom is likely to get the Republican nomination in July because of their own unfavorability ratings, so kind of a moot point as far as predicting match-ups. It's still a long way to July for both parties, a lot like the NFL playoffs (only more brutal ).

Rubio comes across as whiney. I'm surprised he's being seriously considered. Christie is really ripping into him. Ouch.

If an independent or member of a minority party ever became President, wouldn't both major parties just screw him or her over anyway, to make absolutely sure it could never happen again?

An independent would probably have a hard time working with Congress, but it would never get to that point in the first place. First-past-the-post is already biased against third parties, but there are additional institutional barriers to anyone breaking into the two-party system in the US. However, the flip side of this is that the two major parties are very broad churches with many competing interests within them (although they've become a lot more ideologically consistent in the last 10-20 years), so movements or individuals that would in other countries create a new party instead work to build influence within one of the existing parties and often succeed in changing their course. We've seen this recently with the Tea Party and Occupy movements, and there are plenty of historical examples including the Religious Right in the '70s and '80s, movement conservatism in the '60s and later, the Dixiecrats during desegregation (though they briefly formed an independent party), the Progressives in the early 20th century, the Populists in the late 19th (though they also were independent for a bit), and so on.

Watching debate highlights now and yeesh, Halfy wasn't kidding about Rubio. I don't wanna jump the gun but that's the kind of debate performance that has the potential to sink candidacies. The media narrative is already solidifying; everyone's talking about it and Politico's top headline is "Rubio chokes". Really curious to see how that affects him in NH since he had been gaining momentum this week. If he does stumble that's probably the best thing that could happen for Democrats since it will throw the sub-race for GOP Establishment favorite back up in the air and increase the chances of Trump winning NH and either him or Cruz doing even better down the track.

I think Rubio's toast. His only chance might be if enough people have debate saturation that they are no longer paying attention. But if enough people watched, he's finished. If so I expect Christie may rise to a middle position.

Marco Robotio

I had forgotten about Samantha Bee's new show (by my count the fourth former Daily Show correspondent to get their own similar program) but it just recently started and there's a lot of good clips on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO4nGExCFDc&list=PLur87nTwD0BtKbpRwLlNBGgNkBFnl_xvT

I know she's working without a desk so she can be more dynamic (and I might have tried the same thing in her shoes) but it feels a bit over-acted to me. It may just take getting used to.

Oh how I wished this was a real headline:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/fiorina-cheers-self-up-by-firing-campaign-staff

Christie is done for, for real.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/breaking-news-chris-christie-expected-to-suspend-presidential-campaign-219074
http://nypost.com/2016/02/10/chris-christie-to-end-presidential-bid/

Fiorina (and Gilmore, lol) are essentially done for, and I don't see a future for Carson either as he seems to have been totally eclipsed by Cruz as the evangelical favorite. The big question for me is whether Kasich can compete with Bush and Rubio in the establishment lane in more conservative states.

Kasich is close to how I wish the Republican party still looked, Jeb isn't so bad and it seems the same reasons the Republican grassroots don't like him are the ones I appreciate him for.

It was too bad Christie and Trump are essentially friends, otherwise I think Christie may have been the only one capable of landing real punches. I wish Christie had stayed in to do the same thing to Cruz he just did to Rubio.

halfwise wrote: Jeb isn't so bad

What an inspiring slogan for a campaign. They should use it!

Kasich strikes me as Huntsman 2.0. Too reasonable by half to win the nomination. His percentage in the NH primary was very close to Huntsman's as well. Interesting thing is though that Kasich's record as governor is considerably more conservative than he's been positioning himself thus far.

I think Bush is too much of a punchline by now. We talk about how one bad debate performance by Rubio might sink his campaign ... how many debates did Jeb have where he just kept getting bodied by Trump?

Yep, I was thinking Kasich was like Huntsman as well, but I liked Huntsman even more, ergo, the Republican base couldn't wrap their heads around him.

Hands off me you filthy peasant!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Yangtze

http://www.eyesteelfilm.com/uptheyangtze

this documentary film about the Yangtze river dam project is literally the most moving and heartbreaking film I have ever seen. It literally broke me up, and I even contacted the makers of the film because I was beside myself worrying about those people. I couldn't bear to see them suffering. I believe they set up a fund for the families, and if one day I ever have money to spare I will give without thinking twice.

I suppose this is in the US election thread by accident. But yes, the 3 Gorges project is one of the biggest waterworks projects in history, and so also disrupts the largest number of lives. Not that I trust the Chinese government to be completely understanding in how they handle this, but it's not clear anything can be done to make people forced to leave their homes feel okay with it. The most that can be done is overcompensation to ease their way. I suspect that ain't happening, and in fact almost no government compensates more than property value in these cases.

An article from the Washington Post shows how Bernie is pulling Hillary more to the left on Social Security:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/12/we-just-learned-a-lot-about-what-kind-of-democrat-hillary-clinton-really-is/

Basically she used to be amenable to compromise with the Republicans, now she's hardening to the left. Personally I think this is a mistake. Some things like raising the retirement age to compensate for longer lives due to improved health is just plain mathematical common sense. I still think her plan of increasing benefits for the more needy rather than across the board like the Sanders plan is best, but to get even that will require compromise. I hope she's only caving for the sake of the nomination, and will be more flexible if she wins the election.

( For non-Americans, social security is the program that provides government support for retirees. It's only expected to be solvent for another 20 years, largely due to people living longer than they used to, but also due to lower birthrates so the population would skew older anyway. It has been protected from change by the fact that older people have much higher voting rates than the young.)

in which case somebody should tell Donald that Mexican kids could come in handy in 20 years.

halfwise wrote:I suppose this is in the US election thread by accident.  But yes, the 3 Gorges project is one of the biggest waterworks projects in history, and so also disrupts the largest number of lives.  Not that I trust the Chinese government to be completely understanding in how they handle this, but it's not clear anything can be done to make people forced to leave their homes feel okay with it.  The most that can be done is overcompensation to ease their way.  I suspect that ain't happening, and in fact almost no government compensates more than property value in these cases.

sorry, yes, I just remember you talking about your Chinese girlfriend and I went on a stream of consciousness about China.

Justice Scalia Dead Following 30-Year Battle With Social Progress - The Onion

Spoiler:

I don't doubt the republicans will do everything they can to block a nomination. But to be fair, the democrats started this kind of thing, with Robert Bork. They will reap what they've sown.

I saw Scalia in a public discussion about 15 years ago. I was actually quite impressed with his reasoning on constitutional original intent, but that was before he began to dig his heels in. He was quite entertaining.